Offline Access Given to Google Docs for Android App

Most of us love Google Docs, mainly because every single document you need is stored in the cloud and can be easily retrieved whenever you need it. That is, if you have an internet connection at your disposal. So if you're out of range from a Wi-Fi connection, or your 3G network is down, how do you get to those documents?

Fortunately, Google Docs comes with an option to download your documents onto your notebook or desktop. For mobile devices, Google also updated their Android app with an offline access option. File formats that are supported by offline access includes Google documents, Google presentations, Google spreadsheets, uploaded images, and files in formats such as .pdf, .doc, .xls and .ppt. To grant offline access to your documents, touch and hold the document to bring up the secondary menu, followed by choosing "make available offline".

Unfortunately, offline editing is currently not supported with this new feature. However, any edits done online will be automatically synchronized with the offline files once you've established a Wi-Fi connection on your Android device. For 3G connections, you'll have to manually update the offline files with Google Docs by pressing the Update button within the Offline folder.

Tablet users will also notice some visual improvements for Google Docs with the use of a high-resolution version of the document and a simple swipe to flip between pages.